Maggie Nelson, author of Bluets and The Argonauts, was the judge for my category (creative nonfiction) for the Oregon Book Awards. The End of my Career was a finalist this year and although I didn't win, one of our finest writers read and commented on my work. Thank you Maggie Nelson for writing and reading The End of my Career!

From Maggie Nelson:

THE END OF MY CAREER (Perfect Day Publishing)

by Martha Grover

"In a style one might describe as raucously droll, Grover takes the decidedly mundane and rotates in the light of her dead-aim wit. Here’s one page in entirety, which combines a Lydia Davis-esque minimalism with Grover’s wry feminism: “I ask my father to read an article about male entitlement and emotional labor. ‘Can you just tell me what it says?’ he says.” The universe here sketched—punctuated by cleaning jobs, so-so sex, the toll of chronic illness, the growing seep of the internet into our lives—is both original and timely, and Grover is a curious, companionable guide throughout." - Maggie Nelson

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"In her new memoir, Martha Grover goes undercover. Whether cleaning houses or looking for love, she peels back the surfaces of ordinary moments and reveals a life both hilarious and traumatic. The End of My Career sees Grover living with her parents again as she enters her late thirties, reconciling the pleasures and perils of being female, chronically ill, and subsisting on menial labor at the edge of an increasingly unaffordable city. Desperate for stable work, she gets hired as a state-sanctioned private investigator looking into shady workers’ comp claims—even while she herself fights in court for her own disability settlement. Angry and heartbroken, brimming with the outrageous contradictions of the modern world, The End of My Career embodies the comic nightmare of our times."